Amazon Has Acquired Twitch

There have been countless reports over the past few months that Google is going to buy Twitch, the popular video game streaming company. Even though it was reported earlier this month that the deal had been finalized for $1 billion, it looks like Google missed the chance. It has now been confirmed that as previously reported, Amazon is going to acquire Twitch. All outstanding shares of the service will be purchased for roughly $970 million.

Twitch was launched over three years back and it has seen a meteoric rise. By the end of 2013 it had over 40 million users who were watching more than 100 minutes of video every day on average. Twitch has one of the most dedicated user communities out there which certainly helped attract attention from deep pocketed companies like Google and Amazon.

Emmett Shear, Twitch’s CEO, posted a letter on the company’s official website confirming that Twitch has been acquired by Amazon. He says that they went with Amazon because it believes in the community and share Twitch’s values and long-term vision. “They want to help us get there faster,” he says.

Twitch will be keeping its brand, employees and its office. Its community can rest assured as Twitch will also be keeping its independence. However having Amazon’s pocketbook on hand will provide them with enough resources to improve the video game streaming service even more.

This is Amazon’s largest acquisition in its 20 year history, one where it successfully managed to steal the company away from Google.